Kitchen & Bar

On this phone

How to get around

The bar under the name is the map. Swipe it sideways if a destination sits off-screen. On Tonight, the button pinned to the bottom cooks the lead dish.

  1. Tonight — What you can cook first, plus drinks that fit the same shelf.

  2. This week — Five dinners from the shelf, urgent things cooked first.

  3. Shelf — Edit what you actually own.

  4. Written methods — Every dish and drink with a method somebody wrote out.

  5. The pantry — Start from one ingredient: what it does, and everything built on it.

  6. Out of it — What to use instead, judged by the job the missing thing was doing.

  7. Photo review — Review a demo shelf photo and confirm every item before adding it.

  8. Flavor Lab — Pairings with a track record: classic matches and the mixology behind them.

  9. Wild cards — Combinations with no tradition behind them, only shared aroma notes.

  10. Send to Occasion OS — Prepare confirmed shelf availability for Occasion OS.

  11. The field — The gap this layer owns.

Keep it on the home screen

  1. iPhone — tap Share, then Add to Home Screen.
  2. Android — open the browser menu, then Install app or Add to Home screen.

After that it opens as Kitchen & Bar, not a browser tab. Inventory stays on this device.

Substitutions · 5 dishes here use it

Out of chocolate

Fat, sugar and bitterness in proportions the label tells you. It seizes if a small amount of water reaches it and behaves perfectly if a large amount does, which is the most counterintuitive thing in the kitchen.

Everything below is judged against that job. A swap that covers it is a swap; one that only looks similar is not.

1 of the 5 dishes here that mention chocolate list it as optional — 20% of them. In those, the correct substitution is nothing.

What to reach for

Instead · 1

cocoa powder plus butter or oil

three tablespoons of cocoa and a tablespoon of fat per ounce of chocolate

What it gets you
Chocolate flavor and the fat back, which works in a batter or a sauce.
What it costs you
Any setting. This will not temper, will not snap and will not coat.

Instead · 2

a different percentage of chocolate

one for one, adjusting the recipe's sugar

What it gets you
Chocolate. Going darker means adding a little sugar; going sweeter means taking some out.
What it costs you
Precision in a ganache, where the cocoa-butter ratio decides whether it sets.

Instead · 3

chocolate chips, chopped

one for one by weight

What it gets you
Something to melt into a batter or a sauce.
What it costs you
Fluidity. Chips carry stabilizers that stop them melting smoothly, so a ganache made with them can be grainy.

Where you can just leave it out · 1

These dishes list chocolate as optional. They were written to work without it, so no ratio is needed and nothing has to be bought.

Where the swap will be tasted · 2

These need it and are short enough that nothing hides: 4 required ingredients or fewer, which makes chocolate a quarter of what is in the pan. Make the swap a decision rather than a repair.

Check what else is in the pan

The company chocolate keeps in this library, counted off required ingredients. A swap that argues with the top two is the wrong swap, whatever a chart says.

What to make with chocolateRank what I can actually cookAll substitutions